All previous work on carbon nanotubes (both single-walled and multi-walled), has been carried out on the usual intractable, insoluble form of this material [Yakobson, B. I.; Smalley, R. E., Fullerene Nanotubes: C1,000.000 and Beyond. American Scientist 1997, 85, 324-337.] This form of the material is not amenable to many of the processing steps that are necessary if the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are to reach their full potential--particularly in applications that require these materials in the form of polymers, copolymers, composites, ceramics and moldable forms.
While present forms of the SWNTs can be heterogeneously dispersed in various media, the interactions between the SWNTs and host and between the SWNTs themselves are simply physical, and without the formation of chemical bonds. Thus, the advantageous properties of the SWNTs are unlikely to be realized on a macroscopic level. What is needed is a method to prepare well-dispersed forms of SWNTs perhaps by inducing them to exfoliate from the bundles and dissolve in organic solvents. Although long believed to be impossible, [Ebbesen, T. W., Cones and Tubes: Geometry in the Chemistry of Carbon. Acc. Chem. Res. 1998, 31, 558-566] we now teach such a procedure for the dissolution of SWNTs [Chen, J.; Hamon, M. A.; Hu, H.; Chen, Y.; Rao, A. M.; Eklund, P. C.; Haddon, R. C., Solution Properties of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes. Science 1998, 282, 95-98].